Melvin doused guards with feces, N.B. court hears

Jimmy Melvin Jr, during a break in a 2009 court appearance. He is currently on trial in New Brunswick for throwing feces at corrections officers. (TIM KROCHAK / Staff / File)

When Jimmy Melvin Jr. approached the guard station in the special handling unit at the Shediac jail on the afternoon of Nov. 29, corrections officers weren’t concerned.

They were used to dealing with the Halifax crime figure who had been an inmate at the Southeast Regional Correctional Centre since it opened in September.

Melvin spent most of his time at the jail in segregation. When he was allowed out of his cell for one hour a day, two guards had to be present.

Melvin was allowed 30 minutes in the outside recreation yard and then 30 minutes to shower and clean his cell. When he came out of the shower, it wasn’t uncommon for him to stop and chat with the officers before going back into his cell.

But on Nov. 29, Melvin came towards the two guards with his coffee cup in hand.

Melvin then shook his cup at them, dousing them in a liquidy brown substance, the guard said.

“I got hit in the eye with feces and my partner got hit too, in the face and back,” Berube said.

The entire exchange was caught on surveillance video, which Crown attorney Stephen Holt played in court for Judge Camille Vautour.

The video shows two guards sitting at the far end of a hall, one reading the paper, the other at a desk with a computer.

Melvin approaches and can clearly be seen tossing something at them. Both guards jump to their feet. Berube’s partner, Jeff LeBlanc, lifts up a garbage can to try to shield himself from the spray.

Melvin can be seen lifting a computer monitor and tossing it, but it falls to the floor because of the attached wires.

Berube lunges at Melvin, missing him as he backs up. The prisoner then runs to his cell and the guards close the door behind him.

Melvin, 30, was charged with two counts of assault with a weapon and stood trial with Helene Beaulieu representing him. Beaulieu told the judge her client admits assaulting the two men, but doesn’t admit to using a weapon.

She also challenged the victims’ assertion that they were splattered with feces, saying they aren’t experts and can’t say for sure what hit them.

Both guards said they were positive about what was thrown on them.

LeBlanc said it was an ordinary day at the jail. Melvin had asked him a few times about when he would get his TV back in his cell, which the witness speculated had been removed for behavioural reasons.

The guard said he told Melvin a committee would make that decision later in the afternoon and he would have an answer for him.

There was no testimony about Melvin threatening them or acting angry towards them. They said he simply approached and assaulted them.

Both men were hit in the upper body and got feces in their eyes. Once Melvin was secured, they left the area, used a special solution to wash out their eyes and took lengthy showers. LeBlanc said the smell made him gag, so he showered six times that day.

Both men said they threw their uniforms in the garbage rather than clean them.

Neither man was injured, but both were shaken by the incident, which was the first time something like this had happened in their combined 15 years on the job.

Berube missed almost three weeks due to stress and LeBlanc is still off work. He told the court he’s been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It’s a situation I don’t think anyone should go through,” he said. “I’ve had nightmares and I can’t sleep.”

Both men had to take pills in the days following the incident. Berube referred to the assortment of pills as an HIV cocktail. They’ve also had blood tests to see if they contracted hepatitis C or some other disease, but they don’t have the results yet.

Beaulieu asked both guards if they had seen Melvin distraught at times during his stay in segregation and they said they had seen him upset.

The defence didn’t call any evidence, but Beaulieu repeatedly made the point that no analysis was done to determine what Melvin threw on the men, yet the charges specify it was feces.

Final arguments are scheduled for Wednesday. Melvin was remanded into federal custody at the request of the Crown.